Why is Megaupload.com CLOSED and Shutdown ? Mediafire.com is NEXT !!!

[HighSkilledExploiter]

As of January 19, 2012, the Megaupload website has been closed by the FBI, and seven people have been charged with "running an international criminal enterprise centered on copyright infringement on the Internet." Reportedly, Megaupload failed to comply with DMCA provisions.

Is Megaupload responsible for the copyrighted, user-generated content on its site? What about all the valuable, legal content that has now been lost? Are other "cyberlockers" next on the chopping block?

MegaUpload has been shut down by the US federal government. Remind us why we need stronger anti-piracy laws again...

File-sharing mecca MegaUpload.com is dead, shut down at the hands of the US federal government. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested four people, and charged three others, in the anti-piracy sting. The forced closure of MegaUpload comes just one day after a mass online protest against two pieces of legislation that aim to increase the power of copyright holders to block access to websites that illegally distribute intellectual property, like music and movies.

Those arrested include MegaUpload founder Kim “Dotcom” Schmitz, along with three others related to the site. The group was apprehended in New Zealand, with the help of that country’s authorities. MegaUpload is officially a Hong Kong-based company, though according to the Justice Department, it also has servers in Ashburn, VA, Washington DC, the Netherlands and Canada. Schmidtz is a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand.

The indictment against MegaUpload, a site that allowed users to upload anything from a text file to a full feature film, then share a link to the file with others, says the site cost copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue by making their intellectual property free to download. It also says that MegaUpload (aka “the conspirators”) earned $175 million in profits from advertising and premium memberships. Schmitz alone earned $42 million in 2010 from the site, the indictment claims.

In a statement posted to MegaUpload, before its takedown, the company asserted that the majority of its content was legitimate, and the claims of lost revenue were “grotesquely overblown.”

“The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch,” the company said.

MegaUpload boasted “more than 150 million registered users, 50 million daily visitors and accounting for four percent of the total traffic on the Internet,” according to the Justice Department, whose website was also unable to load, at the start of this writing. According to Twitter user AnonymousIRC, a highly-popular account related to the hacktivist group ‘Anonymous,’ the DoJ’s website appeared to have been “besieged by pirates.” It is unclear at this time whether Anonymous had anything to do with the outage, which has since been resolved.

UPDATE: It is now glaringly clear that Anonymous was behind the DDoS attack that took down Justice.gov, along with the websites of Universal Music, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the White House, the US Copyright Office and the FBI, among others. Needless to say, this isn’t going to go over well in Washington.

In addition to having been one of the most-widely-used file-sharing sites on the Web, MegaUpload is also unique because of its endorsements from artists like Kanye West, Will.i.am, and Alicia Keys. Kim Kardashian, who is not an artist, also endorsed the site. Renowned rapper, producer, and NYU professor Kaseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean is listed as MegaUpload’s CEO. (Not coincidentally, Beatz is also Alicia Keys’ husband.) Judging by his recent tweets, the last of which came five hours ago, Beatz still appears to be free, and apparently just ate some Chinese food.

Federal authorities say that the timing of MegaUpload’s takedown had nothing to do with Wednesday’s blackout protest against the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA). And that’s most certainly true; this kind of sting doesn’t just happen overnight. But that doesn’t mean the two will remain unrelated in the minds of the public.

This case clearly proves that our government already has the ability to shutdown a website, whose company is based in Hong Kong, and have its employees arrested by the police of another foreign country. That isn’t exactly a compelling argument for giving copyright holders and the federal government more power to combat piracy from “foreign rogue websites,” which is the primary aim of both SOPA and PIPA.

Of course, it appears as though MegaUpload isn’t actually considered a “foreign” rogue site, even though its base of operations is in China, due to the fact that it had servers housed in the US. SOPA and PIPA gives the power to block access to — but not entirely shut down — websites that operate exclusively outside the US. After this monstrous display of muscle flexing, however, we doubt many people will have sympathy for that distinction.

That said, combating the piracy of websites that operate outside the rule of US law really isn’t a matter of contention in the SOPA/PIPA debate. It’s all the “unintended consequences” and “collateral damage” that educated critics say the bills’ loose wording could lead to — things like the blockage of legitimate free speech, the squashing of online innovation, and the potential damage to the Internet’s infrastructure — that have the masses seething. The takedown of MegaUpload merely shows that our anti-piracy laws aren’t as weak as some would like us to believe.

Will mediafire.com be NEXT ?

[Losille]

Most likely all the file sharing sites will go down soon.
Most of us think that the shut down of MegaUploads was push back by the gov for the internet strike. They deny it but we don't belief them.
Anonymous is fighting back but there isn't anything they can do if the govt seizes a website.The domain is the property of the US govt.
Use proxies to upload and download content.
Do not use the real name of the item you are uploading.
Stay far, far away from movies and music for right now.

[abhishekkjain]

Thinking to use another site w/o .com or .net domain.

[Omni Potens]

Megaupload.com is back.
http://bestblackhatforum.com/Thread-109-...d-com-site

[c0ri]

i have a feeling that they will be back up and running at some point. seems to always work like that. dont think i'd post any pirated stuff on there if they do though.

[ButterSkochh]

Filesonic just stopped working !!! :(


Massage:
-----All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.

If this file belongs to you, please login to download it directly from your file manager.
-----

[It'sOkayNow]

I think intelectual property is just an imagination, and so the intelectual property right is only an imagination.

Digital products sharing will never decrease product owning, but increase the amount of the product.

But why this activity must be stopped?

The answer is they want to cheat peoples to get money.

[pmoose]

I'm not worried I am now using a none US hosted file sharing site.
Here's the site check it out.

hxxp://massmediashare.cOm

[Lucid]

No, the reason is that the rightful creators of content want to be paid for the content they created. It's a pretty simple concept. While we all want to take it for free, there's no real excuse that rightfully supports piracy. We just want shit for free, and it's nice that free can freely swap shit around for free and say F*** the content creators.

That isn't going to go on forever though. Filesharing sites as we know them right now have a limitted lifespan, and that should be easy enough for anyone to see. Whether we like it or not, the days of rampant internet piracy will come to an end relatively soon. Does that mean piracy comes to a close? Nope. It'll just go back oldschool and we'll be trading in private FTP and DCC fileservers.

The pirates dug their own grave here. It was fun while it lasted though.

[Lucid]

Funny timing, I just got a warning email from my ISP for downloading The Rum Diary the other day. Hell that was fast, I don't think I had downloaded the movie for 8 hours and they'd already emailed my service provider and got it forwarded on to me!

Must be some honeypots on TPB right now, lol.